So what would have happened had NU caught the Martinez fumble/pass. There is no way that play would have been reviewed and overturned. There is no way a ball can go 15 yards down field without the QB having some control and the defenders arm swing was going the opposite direction. Say NU took it to the endzone for a touchdown, but it was called back for a forward fumble recovery. I am sorry, but I have never seen that play called when the ball was that far downfield and should not have been called Saturday night.
Question on the Fumble/pass
- Thread starter Iowan4NU
- Start date
I tend to agree because that was my initial reaction when they buzzed for review. I was thinking what the heck they're just giving Illinois a breather on d. But it was the right call after watching the replay in SLO mo. BUT the whistle blew before recovery. End of the play should have remained NU ball imo
I know in there NFL there's a rule regarding replay where the defense gets possession in that situation where it is clear a defensive player would be the only person with a reasonable chance to recover (and that they make the effort to possess the ball). There was a similar situation in the 2018 Cal-Texas game toward the end where a Cal player fumbled before crossing the goal line, no Texas player attempted to pick it up, so Cal retained possession.
According to the NCAA rules, if a forward pass is reviewed and deamed a fumble there must be immediate recovery through the continuation of the play.
My issue with the ruling Saturday night was there really wasn't immediate recovery. The defender that tried to intercept it didn't go after it. Another defender and our tight end I think, let it go right past them. It was a third defender that finally went for the ball after it rolled back to the 14 yd line after many seconds went by.
Should have been ruled a fumble but with no immediate recovery, ball placed at original line of scrimmage, Nebraska ball.
My issue with the ruling Saturday night was there really wasn't immediate recovery. The defender that tried to intercept it didn't go after it. Another defender and our tight end I think, let it go right past them. It was a third defender that finally went for the ball after it rolled back to the 14 yd line after many seconds went by.
Should have been ruled a fumble but with no immediate recovery, ball placed at original line of scrimmage, Nebraska ball.
That my beef, the whistle blew so it a dead ball and at that moment Illinois didn’t have possession. Watch the replay, as soon as the ball hits the ground the side judge signals incomplete pass and blows his whistle here you watch Illinois doesn’t have possession yet
And what if you knock a guy on his ass to get the fumble. Is that a late hit or not since you are trying to get immediate recovery. It’s an odd situation.
The "fumbled" pass rolled along the ground so long it went completely off the screen. The announcers had a hard time figuring out what happened to it. I wish they had played the audio on the replay as well because you can see the Nebraska players facing the opposite direction, and even walking back to the sideline. The ball wasn't just dead, it was buried, fossilized, and mounted in a ancient history museum.
So it’s partial football at that point. You do somethings and not other things. Odd evolution of the game.
The whistle blew. Nobody had possession of the ball when the whistle blew. Should have been our ball. We got screwed yet again. Hoping we have competent refs vs Ohio state.
On top of the whistle blowing, you can't throw a ball after a fumble. That's what they're saying he did, right? he fumbled and then threw it down field..
No. The ball didn't hit the ground until after it left his possession.
The only problem with that call was that the refs blew the play dead and then gave possession to Illinois even though they didn't have control. It would be like a running back fumbling a ball after a run, the whistle blows, everybody heads back to the huddle but a defender picks it up and hands it to the ref. Then they review it and decide "golly, we screwed up so I guess the review is our out". This situation almost never happens but after that I'm sure that the officiating office will clarify the rule so it isn't in question again.
Another interesting impact in these situations could be clock. What is clock stopped with 3 seconds left in game but it takes 4+ seconds for said “immediate” recovery( like this one.) Does the recovering team get the ball with 3 seconds or so they adjust the clock to be game over ..... would be funny to watch that one
The only part that's a gray area is the immediate part. There was not immediate recovery in that play.
From the NCAA rule book:
If the pass is ruled forward and is incomplete, the play is reviewable
only if the ball goes out of bounds or if there is clear recovery of a
loose ball in the immediate continuing football action after the loose
ball.
From the NCAA rule book:
If the pass is ruled forward and is incomplete, the play is reviewable
only if the ball goes out of bounds or if there is clear recovery of a
loose ball in the immediate continuing football action after the loose
ball.
I would think that it was not immediate, although immediate is certainly not an exact rule wording wise.
Reportedly, that football kept rolling right off the screen, out of the stadium, and down the street until it was recovered by a kid playing soccer in Decatur. That's pretty much the OPPOSITE of the standard of "immediate continuing football action" required for it to be correctly ruled a fumble.
Nobody talking about the "block in the back" call that was called correctly, then uncalled, that was probably worth 7 points...how come husker fans never talk about calls that benefit us but are completely wrong. We had a bunch in our favor...and normally we do.
You guys have the rules in front of you, I don't... However, when whistles blow, it would seem to me, that you open a number of different questions. Whistles undoubtedly blew & they blew before the ball ever hit the ground. I'm not so sure it was recovered with in 1 or 2 seconds or even 5 seconds.
This makes almost as much sense as the out of bounds kick off. You can probably come up with a way of justifying that one as well, but that doesn't mean it makes sense. I give the Illinois credit for knowing and understanding that kickoff rule and executing it properly. A lot of us learned alot about the rules today, at least I did.
This makes almost as much sense as the out of bounds kick off. You can probably come up with a way of justifying that one as well, but that doesn't mean it makes sense. I give the Illinois credit for knowing and understanding that kickoff rule and executing it properly. A lot of us learned alot about the rules today, at least I did.
Probably because the play that immediately followed would have been a walk in touchdown from literally anywhere on the field.
you’re assuming the exact same play would be called and the exact same defense would have been played.
I had the same opinion until I rewatched the game. The blocker and defender were continuously engaged and the defender changed direction, so I do think it was correct that it wasnt a penalty. Imagine if we had a situation where all a defender has to do is turn around midplay and the blocker is penalized.
Wrong wrong wrong. Yes, the rules allow for recovery after the ball is blown dead, if there is clear recovery in the "immediate continuing action". It is most certainly referencing time frame, what else could it be referencing? There is literally no definition of the word "immediate" that could be being used here that would make any sense other than a time frame.
Those are the only 3 definitions of the word that would even make sense here, and even the 3rd one is a stretch to say that would be being referenced in the use of "immediate" in the rule. Even if the third definition was being referenced, considering the ball rolled a good 10+ yards from where it was initially blown dead before anyone picked it up, you couldn't even argue that was correct. When you start to get into questioning the only logical definitions of a key word in a rule to try and absolve the refs of screwing up, you're trying too hard.
I've already stated it before, but if the Illinois player who nearly intercepted the ball had then immediately dove on top of it once it went through his hands and hit the ground, that would certainly count in the definition and you could easily say Illinois ball. If the other Illinois defender who was running over toward the guy who nearly intercepted the ball had dove on top of it after it fell to the ground, you could again argue that would count in the "immediate continuing action". Neither of those things happened, both of those players, after the ball touched the ground and the refs blew their whistles and signaled incomplete, turned and walked away from the ball, as did multiple other players.
Another thing that I haven't seen brought up yet, but is a perfect example of why you can't give the ball after that much had passed from it being blown dead. I hadn't noticed this previously, because I was only going off memory of what I saw when the play initially happened, I hadn't rewatched it yet. After the Illinois player drops the ball to the turf, and it starts to roll away, it rolls almost directly toward Jack Stoll who was running toward the play, possibly to make a tackle on the interception. Watch the play, Jack Stoll actually has a perfect opportunity to scoop the ball up, and if you watch from the one sideline angle they show, you can even see him start to square up to go after the ball, and then he stops and starts to just walk toward the huddle. Why does he stop? Because it's about that point the refs start to blow the whistle to signal incomplete. You can see the play I'm referencing in the gif below.
At the start, Jack Stoll is at the very left of the frame and the ball is behind the Illinois defender. You can see the ball bounce up and Jack Stoll moves in; you see him kinda widen his arms and lean forward like he's preparing to dive on the ball. The video cuts away right after this ends, but from another angle shown later, you can see he would have had very good shot at the ball, but after initially squaring up to go after it, he stops and turns back to the huddle, when the whistle blows. The stuff seen in this clip is the "immediate continuing action". If the Illinois defender on the ground would have crawled forward and grabbed the ball; or the defender behind him starting to celebrate what he thinks is an INT would have dove on the ball; or #55 would have immediately dove on the ball, that would count as the "immediate continuing action" and give Illinois the ball.
But, as you can see, Nebraska lost an opportunity to recover the ball as well, because of the whistle blowing, and the ball rolled around for a good 4-5 seconds before being picked up. You said it was recovered within a second or two from hitting the ground, that's not even remotely close. I paused the YouTube video when the ball hit the ground, and then counted from there to when it was picked up, which you can't even see because the camera cuts away, so I had to kind of guess. It's in the neighborhood of 4-5 seconds, maybe slightly longer since you don't actually see them pick the ball up, from when it hits the ground; and roughly 3-4 seconds from when you hear the whistle blow, which is probably delayed a little on the TV broadcast. That is not the "immediate continuing action" the refs got it WRONG.
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Just to add on, if we're getting into semantics of what counts as immediate and such. As stated above, from the time the ball hit to the ground to when it was probably picked up was around 4-5 seconds, probably closer even to 5-6 seconds. To give a comparison, so you can see how relatively long that is in the sense of the game, the play in question where all this stuff happened, took a total of roughly 6 seconds. Watching the replay, the ball is snapped just as the clock changes from 6:18 to 6:17 and hits the ground as it changes from 6:12 to 6:11, so around 6 seconds. That was a somewhat slow developing pass play too, with Adrian standing in the pocket for a reasonable length of time before attempting to throw. I would say the amount of time required to run an entire play would not be anywhere near "immediate" in the relative time frame of how long things take in a football game.
It's been discussed before, but please read the block in the back rule. As stated above by Crazyhole, the refs were 100% correct to pick up the flag. A specific exception to the block in the back rule is that if a player starts a block that would be legal, and then the defender turns his back to him, as is exactly what happened on that play, it's not a penalty.
Even taking that into account, saying "that was probably worth 7 points" is just ridiculous hyperbole. That non-penalty occured on a first down play; if called it's a spot foul from about the 12 yard line, play started at the 14, means Nebraska would have had the ball 1st and 18 from the 22. Starting with that drive, Nebraska didn't punt the rest of the game, so clearly Illinois had no answer for the offense. On that drive in particular, Nebraska had run 5 plays to that point, and had no third downs, and only one second down. Nebraska had run 5 plays that had covered 66 yards, averaging 13.2 yards per play. Taking all that into account, assuming they wouldn't have scored because of a non-call of a non-penalty on a first down is just ridiculous. Penalty probably just would have delayed the score a little. No penalty occured, however, so it's a non-issue.
"how come husker fans never talk about calls that benefit us but are completely wrong. We had a bunch in our favor...and normally we do" This line may be the most hilarious of your post though. First of all, I see plenty of people talk about the calls that supposedly benefited us (like you!). None of the calls that supposedly benefited us that I've seen talked about from that game were actually completely wrong; if you know the actual rules. We had a bunch in our favor? Seriously? Nebraska had 11 penalties for 119 yards, Illinois had 4 for 66 (that's even somewhat misleading as 46 of those penalty yards come from a kickoff return that was called back, and for some reason the yards on a kickoff return taken off because of penalty count in penalty yards, even though they don't in any other situation. Actual yards of penalties called was 30; 2 holds, 12 men and offsides.) Prior to this game, Illinois ranked nearly dead last in penalties per game (110th) and penalty yards per game (125th); Nebraska was top 50 in both categories. I could also point out that neither of those two holds were called on the offense; one was on defense and one was on special teams, and the other two penalties were on the defense as well, meaning the Illinois offense didn't get called for a single accepted penalty in the ENTIRE GAME. Taking all that into account, the officiating was in Nebraska's favor? Really? The part about "we normally do" is too hilariously moronic to even warrant trying to respond.
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That's why I teach my kids to jump on any football they see randomly rolling down the street. You never know.
Great idea. Might want to also encourage them to wear a husker jersey at all times in case they end up part of a replay. You never know these days.
Now if you can just get them to raise Hell during breaks in a volleyball match...
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